Levant Basin Energy Advisory

As Israel takes its newly earned place among the world's gas exporters, we are focusing this week on the Levant Basin region, where there is a flurry of interest and accompanying activity, and where investors should be keeping track and taking score.

Deals in Motion
•    Italy's Edison utility (owned by France's EDF) is in talks to buy two Israeli gas fields from US explorer Noble Energy (behind Israel's massive Levant Basin discoveries) and Israel's Delek Drilling. The interesting part of this story is that Noble and Delek own the Leviathan gas field-the largest in the area-and now have to sell their stakes in two smaller fields or they will be labeled a "cartel". The two offshore fields are Tanin and Karish and are believed to contain a combined total of up to 70 billion cubic meters of gas. This wouldn't be Edison's first foray into Israel's offshore prospects. Edison is already exploring adjacent to the Leviathan field. We expect some problems with these talks, however, associated with Israel's anti-trust authorities, who are attempting to see to it that operators build infrastructure at the same time as they explore. They will also restrict gas sales to the domestic market.

•    Noble Energy and Delek-also partners in Israel's smaller Tamar gas field-announced last weekend that they had signed a deal to provide $750 million worth of gas to IPP Delek Soreq for an Israeli-based power plant currently under construction. Under the deal, IPP Delek will purchase 3.3 billion cubic meters  of natural gas over 15 years. IPP is controlled by Delek Group, which has a 31.25% interest in Tamar, through two subsidiaries-Delek Drilling and Avner. Noble is the operator of Tamar, with a 36% interest. Gas production at Tamar began in exactly a year ago today, and the field is estimated to hold around 223 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

•    Israel sealed it first-ever gas export agreement last month, with Jordan. Noble and Delek will export $500 million worth of gas to two Jordanian companies under the deal. The gas will be exported over a 15-year period beginning in 2016. This deal requires the construction of a short pipeline south of the Dead Sea.  

•    In January, Noble signed a $1.2 billion contract with the Palestinian Electric Company to supply a power station in Jenin in the northern West Bank, which is still under construction. Gas for this will come from the Leviathan field over a period of 25 years. This gas is not considered "export", rather is part of the 60% of Israeli gas slated for "domestic" consumption. This deal went through despite the fact that Israel is still blocking the development of the Gaza Marine field off the coat of the Gaza Strip, which is said to hold about 1 trillion cubic feet of gas and could itself supply Palestinian power stations.
•    
Greece has launched an international tender for a study to assess the feasibility of a proposed pipeline to transport gas from Israel and Cyprus to reduce dependency on Russian gas supplies. This Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline would initially carry 8 billion cubic meters of Israeli and Cypriot gas annually to Greece and then further into Europe. The gas would be distributed to European markets through the IGI Poseidon pipeline run by Edison and Greek utility DEPA. They will have a hard time getting this pipeline off the ground because it would have to traverse maritime territory disputed with Turkey. This is where we will see some increasing competition between Greece, Cyprus and Turkey to become Europe's key energy hub. For now, Turkey is refusing to recognize any gas deals that involve the Greek Cypriot side of the island. At the same time, the Russian aggression in Ukraine's Crimea region is lending more impetus to the importance of getting Israeli gas to Europe, so we could see some positive movement on this under pressure.

•    Another company with a lot invested here is Australia's Woodside Petroleum, which is seeking a $2.6 billion stake in the Leviathan field to support a Woodside-operated LNG plant. However, Woodside's entry terms into Leviathan are conditioned on tax issues concerning transfer pricing, which were supposed to be resolved by the end of this month. Right now, though, the Israeli Ministry of Finance appears to be leaning toward a resolution that is not in Woodside's favor. Israel's gas export tax committee is reportedly preparing to recommend that the Woodside LNG plant be taxed at a rate that is higher than the Australian company is bargaining for. The deal signed last month with Noble and friends over Leviathan is only conditional, and if the tax issue is sorted out and the deal is not made binding by 27 March, the deal could be changed.

Elsewhere in the Prospective Levant Basin …

Finally, in mid-February, prospective oil and gas explorers eyeing Lebanon's portion of the basin (some of which remains disputed) had some good news in the form of a new Lebanese government. The failure to form a new government had been holding up the country's first offshore oil and gas auction for some time. After 10 long months of deadlock, Lebanon announced the formation of a new politically inclusive 24-member government headed by Sunni Muslim centrist Tammam Salam. With the new government in place, the Cabinet can move towards approving two decrees necessary for exploration to move forward.

Last weekend, Lebanon's new energy minister-Arthur Nazarian-- urged the government to move things forward quickly, eyeing the estimated 96 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves in its offshore territory. There is still a lot of work to do here. A month after the new Cabinet was formed, the decrees still haven't been passed because the new government needs a vote of confidence in parliament first.

Of the decrees that must be past, one endorses the model exploration and production sharing agreement, while the other endorses the demarcation areas for 10 offshore blocks in Lebanon's 22,730 square km (8,776 square miles) exclusive economic zone. The decrees were drawn up by the Petroleum Administration which operates under the Ministry of Energy and Water. The deadline for closing the licensing round that was initiated last February has been postponed three times. Originally it was to have closed in November last year. The latest closing date is April 10. Bidders now say the 10 April closing date is too soon because the decrees have not yet been passed. Even if the decrees were passed on time, explorers typically need about three months to consider their bids and evaluate the geology of the blocks. We expect this to move forward now, but not within the April timeframe.